


The Cross Keys

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6389125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has no idea what this is, what they’re doing.  It feels wrong and horribly right all at once.  It feels terrifying, and like the best thrill, the best high he’s ever had.  ‘This will have consequences!’ some part of his brain screams.  But he’s past the point of heeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cross Keys

**Author's Note:**

> A little something I posted on Tumblr, and thought I'd post here too.
> 
> * _If you follow my other novel-length fic, "Letters from Sussex", I just wanted to let you know that I have the work week of April 4th - 8th off, and I took it off expressly to work on that fic, so you can expect updates on it very soon._
> 
> _Thank you for your patience._

The key turns in the door to their room above the Cross Keys, and Sherlock pretends to sleep.His head aches, his eyes burn, even the soft susurrus of John’s breathing, as he quietly enters, is too loud in his ears.

John walks to the end of his bed, stops.  “Sherlock?”  A whisper.  And then a little louder.  “Sherlock?”  A sigh… 

He retreats across the room to his duffle bag, and begins to root around.  He smells of women’s perfume ( _Louise Mortimer’s - perhaps John did get somewhere with her, after all…_ ), and the moors at night.  Sherlock hates the battle of scents, hates even more that the stench of synthetic gardenia is drowning out the spicy tang of wild grass, and earth, and John’s own unique chemistry.

John strips—all the way naked.  If Sherlock didn’t have his back to him he might crack open an eyelid and steal a glimpse.  He’s done so before.  He has gone into his room to retrieve something he doesn’t really need from his wardrobe just as John turns off the shower.  The privacy glass of the partition between his bedroom and the toilet isn’t all that private.  He has seen the fine curve of John’s arse, his muscular thighs; his small hands and softly muscled arms flexing as he combs his hair in the mirror.

Sherlock stops the train of thought, remembers to control his breathing.

John, steps into a clean pair of pants (the blue cotton Y-fronts, no doubt), and a white vest, and then climbs into bed without even having a wash or brushing his teeth.  There is the soft shuffle of sheets as John settles, followed by a sigh, and then, “Sherlock?  Are you awake?”

Sherlock should say something.  He should apologise.  He knows this.  He isn’t even sure what happened earlier at the pub.  It had been years since he had felt so overwhelmed, so out of control, so absolutely and utterly terrified.  And he had taken that out on John, and it wasn’t John’s fault, not really, not at all, and John had said ‘friend’— **friend**!—and it had seemed too significant, somehow, too immense on top of everything else.  It still does.  So, like a coward Sherlock keeps quiet.

The room goes silent.  John doesn’t sleep.  He’s wide awake and very still.  After what feels like about 15 minutes, he sighs softly, shifts a little beneath the sheets.  Sherlock hears the gentle, but distinct sound of skin brushing against skin.  It’s essential that he keep his breathing deep and even if he is going to maintain the illusion of sleep, but oh how he wants to hold his breath, to listen, to confirm he didn’t imagine it.

After a moment or two more, there it is again.  The soft slide of John’s hand over…?  Over what?  Chest?  Belly?  A hitch of breath followed by a quickening, a shallowing out of it.  Hand moving again, stopping, a small huff.

Sherlock should move.  He knows this.  This is a deception that is beneath him.  But John would most certainly stop if he did, and though he knows John does this, he’s never been close enough to hear. 

Well—he has heard the occasional clipped shout or moan float down from the ceiling in the dead of night.  John doesn’t work _that_ hard at keeping quiet when he engages in these sorts of activities in the privacy of his own room at Baker Street.  But that’s different.  That is a whole floor between them.  This is quite something else entirely.  Sherlock can hear every tiny nuance of John’s pleasure. 

It’s a revelation.

John sucks in a quavering breath, and then lets it out a breathy ‘ _uhh…_ ’, and Sherlock’s skin erupts into tingles of sympathetic arousal.  It surprises him.  This doesn’t happen to him.  Not just from this. 

He has experimented.  He’s watched pornography.  He’s watched men in clubs, do everything short of outright fuck one another on the dance floor.  He has read erotic literature.  He has listened, on quiet nights, to the couple next-door murmuring, groaning, shouting out their shared climax.  No reaction.  He doesn’t feel things this way.

He masturbates on occasion, of course.  Just as a means to release pent up energy.  He is able to coax a swift, and efficient orgasm from himself.  There is nothing wrong with him physically.  He is capable of teasing forth, and maintaining an erection, capable of experiencing the sensations of pleasure when physically stimulated.  But to experience spontaneous arousal simply from observation of another’s pleasure…  Well—this is new.

John’s breath is quicker now.  It’s obvious he is at least attempting to keep quiet, but it seems that the more he chases his pleasure, the more and more difficult this is becoming.  A few more sighs, and hitches of breath, and then suddenly there is a great rustle of sheets, and John getting up, padding across the room to the toilet. 

Sherlock fights off a wave of disappointment.  There is a low, tight heat pooling in his groin.  He is almost more fascinated than he is aroused.  But now John will retreat and finish in the loo, and Sherlock will never know what might have happened.  Such a pity…

But, John doesn’t shut the door.  After a few seconds Sherlock can hear him rummaging about on the vanity, and he takes the opportunity to move a little, to slide his own warm hand beneath the waistband of his pyjamas to cradle his burgeoning erection.  The jolt of intense pleasure at even the slightest brush of his palm shocks him.  Interesting.  He wraps his hand around his cock, and gives a couple of tentative pulls.  His breath catches, and he has to stop.

Too much.

And then John is returning, slipping back beneath the covers, and Sherlock is caught, hand down his pyjamas, fingers wrapped firmly about his cock.  He could disengage himself, shuffle a little and remove his hand all in one motion, but then John would know he was awake, and John is back and settling beneath the covers, flipping open the cap of something… 

The delicate, mild scent of their room’s complimentary hand lotion fills the air.  John is taking this seriously then.  He means to finish, and here, in his bed, only a few feet away from Sherlock’s.  This is curious.  It makes no sense.  He was up already, in the loo,  why not stay there, and finish quickly, efficiently, privately?

Perhaps he wants to be comfortable?  Draw it out a little?  It _is_ cold in the room.  Perhaps he wanted the warmth of the bed.  Perhaps he intends to fantasise a little first, and he wants time to settle into the little story he wants to weave for himself. 

_(Do other people do that?  Do they tell themselves stories?)_

This is about Louise Mortimer, Sherlock is almost certain of it.  She was an attractive woman.  John’s type, of late—lean, dark haired, with the slightest hint of stubbornness and spark.  Her interrogation over candle lit dinner, was Sherlock’s attempted olive branch to John for their little spat earlier in the pub.  John smelled of white wine as well as her perfume when he entered.  He likely only got so far, and then was interrupted, or brushed off, and now he needs the relief.  It’s why he didn’t wash.  The lingering scent of her is helping him.

Sherlock hears John dispense some of the lotion, slick it between his hands, reach back beneath the covers.  He muffles a moan against his arm when he finally wraps his slicked hand around his cock, and Sherlock’s twitches in his own hand in sympathy.  The pleasure pulses and throbs through his abdomen,and races outward, setting every nerve ending aflame.  His thighs and fingers, nipples and scalp sing with it.  It is so intense, so unexpected that he is starting to forget his fascination.  This is something so unique in his experience, that his brain seems unable to process it.  All there is are the sensations, and an almost frantic need to keep up, to chase it, to not let it get away from him.  He wants this, he suddenly realises.  He wants it desperately, and it’s never been like that. 

He doesn’t have time to think about what it might mean, because he can hear the rhythmic squelch of John’s lotion-slicked hand stroking his cock.  And Sherlock’s forgotten to breath deeply, evenly.  He’s forgetting to breathe altogether.

John rolls suddenly onto his right side.  He’s facing Sherlock’s back now, and it’s the worst possible thing for him to do, because he will see anything, everything, even the tiniest of movements, and Sherlock’s cock is rock hard, and throbbing in his hand.  Each pant, and sigh John lets out, only driving him closer, and closer to the edge.  He tightens his hand a little and has to bite his own lip to keep from groaning aloud. 

He’s moved now, though.  He knows he has, a little involuntary thrust of the pelvis.  And John has to have seen it.  He can tell by the volume and general direction of the soft hums and grunts that John is looking at him, right at him, as he pumps his fist faster, and faster.

The subdued sounds John has been making are starting to form into something almost coherent.  He’s whispering to himself, small little snatches of almost inaudible things strung between the sounds of his mounting need.  “ _Please…  So close.  Please.  Christ, Please, Sh…_ ” 

John has a filthy mouth at times, and Sherlock is certain that that last, soft, shush, strung out into a sharp, ‘ah!’ of pleasure was most likely meant to be profanity, and not the first syllable of Sherlock’s name, but his brain doesn’t seem to care about things such as the balance of probability at the moment.  It latches onto that ‘Sh…”, and brings tears to his eyes, a fresh, hot surge of blood to his cock, and a painful twist to his heart that aches so deeply he almost forgets the pleasure for a moment.

And John is close, that is clear by the sounds he’s making, but the rustling of the sheets as he changes tactics, and starts to thrust into his own closed fist, and Sherlock stops trying to hold on after that.  It’s madness, nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking, and an absolute overabundance of dopamine and endorphins racing through his veins, but it feels like John must want this, must want to watch, and if not—well, he’s past the point of caring. 

Sherlock shifts his hips, just a little, rolls forward onto his stomach to see if John will see him, hear him, and stop.  the motion pushes his cock through the circle of his fist, and stars burst over his skin and behind his eyelids.

John whines and thrusts faster.

Sherlock has no idea what this is, what they’re doing.  It feels wrong and horribly right all at once.  It feels terrifying, and like the best thrill, the best high he’s ever had.  ‘ _This will have consequences!_ ’ some part of his brain screams.  But he’s past the point of heeding.

He rocks his pelvis; small, shallow little thrusts, nothing overt, but still substantial enough to be seen.

John’s breath catches.  He stops moving for a moment, his breath coming in quick, thirsty pants.  Sherlock wonders if he should stop, too.  His cheeks feel hot, and his head light.  But, it feels so good, so much better than anything he’s ever had alone, at his own hand, and he’s too far gone.

“So close…” John whispers, starts to move again, and Sherlock wonders what it might take to get John all the way there.  He’s teetering on the edge himself, trying with all his might to hold back, truth be told, and he’s losing.  But he wants it.  He wants to hear John’s pleasure crash over him.  John started this, it’s only fair he should get what he wants.

Perhaps if he were to be a little more vocal?  Sherlock stops trying to hide the rapidly increasing cadence of his breathing as his nears the edge.  He moans softly. 

John responds with something that almost sounds like a choked sob.  “Oh Christ.  Christ, please, Sher…”

Pleasure shoots through Sherlock at the sound, and he can feel his balls tighten, the tension build, and there’s no stopping it then.  It’s the intensity of it that overwhelms him, the way his brain whites out, and he keens John’s name over, and over, as he spills, hot and wet over his fist and belly.

And somewhere in the periphery of his mind John is there, hissing, and then letting out a shout, that sounds almost like surprise, like the intensity of it is an anomaly for him too.  And then a short series of delightful, high-pitched whines before silence.

Sherlock lies very still, face buried in his pillow, cheeks still damp, cock softening in his hand.  He doesn’t dare move, because this is when it gets difficult.  This is when they—one of them at least—has to say something, do something, and it’s anyone’s guess who will make the first move.

After a few minutes of pregnant silence, John sniffs and rolls onto his back.  “Shit…”  whispered into the dark.  He gets up, goes to the loo, and shuts the door.

Sherlock takes the opportunity to wiggle out of his pyjamas, uses them to clean himself up, the best he can, and then tosses them on the floor between the bed and the wall, and cocoons himself back under the blankets.  He listens to the water run in the sink.  After a minute or two the shower turns on.

They’ll talk about it in the morning, then.  It’s fine.  Awkward, unexpected, completely foreign to everything Sherlock thought he knew about his relationship to John, but it’s fine.  The morning.  The morning is soon enough.

 

* * *

 

But John is already up and out when Sherlock wakes the next morning, and when Sherlock finally finds him in the local graveyard, scribbling away in the little notebook he uses for cases, things are awkward.  John is evasive, nervous, and Sherlock suddenly realises—they won’t talk about this.  They were never going to talk about this.  It’s something to be tucked away, cherished, but never referred to again. 

It was a mistake, perhaps?  Or maybe just the sort of thing that happens between friends like him and John, and then is stored away at the back of one’s mind, a one-off, a bit of wild adventure on holiday, but not meant for the realities of day-to-day life.  Sherlock didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it does.

Unpleasant.  Unforgivable breech of both his own better judgement and personal code of conduct.  If it hurts now, it is no one’s fault but his own.  Stupid.  **Stupid**!

There are apologies then, for Sherlock’s anger in the pub, and there is small talk, and a lame attempt at humour that falls flat, and Sherlock isn’t sure if they’re talking about the case, or the night before, a few times, but neither of them has the courage to clarify, and so it lies still, and quiet, in the back of their minds ( _and their hearts_ )— _The Night._ The night at the Cross Keys.


End file.
